Editor’s Note
This article explores how technological advancements are reshaping the jewellery retail landscape, moving the trade beyond traditional craftsmanship to embrace new manufacturing capabilities. Samuel Ord examines the strategic shift for jewellers navigating this modern evolution.
The jewellery trade can be a complicated and gruelling industry, dominated by long hours at the bench, difficult orders to fill and hard-to-please customers.
With that said, more and more jewellers are choosing to ‘sail in smoother waters’ by embracing emerging technologies.
Advances in science and technology reshaped a number of retail industries over the past 10 years and few practices have had as much of an impact as Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM).
As many retailers told Jeweller, CAD/CAM offers virtually unlimited design potential and opens the door to previously unimaginable possibilities.
By utilising these tools, jewellers are able to design and manufacture pieces of the highest fashion and quality for an increasingly affordable price to the customer.
In other words, high fashion and ‘big ticket’ jewellery is no longer the exclusive province of the major brands and elite designers.
An experienced operator can break down a design into separate pieces to ensure manufacturing and finishing to a high standard is easier.
These jewellers no longer have to feel daunted by intricate designs that would once take many agonising days or even weeks to make by hand.
In one sense the ultimate beneficiary is the customer, who receives the jewellery of their dreams at a price that doesn’t ‘break the bank’.
With that said, these forward-thinking jewellers also enjoy the benefits of not only another happy customer, but also as an improved reputation in their respective market.
For others, great importance is placed on the satisfaction of a job well done. One such jeweller who fits the description of an ‘experienced operator’ is Carlo Romeo, of Carlo Romeo Jewellers in Kewdale, WA.
Romeo has worked with jewellery since the 1980s, and today uses 3D imaging to provide customers with the chance to review pieces before they’re manufactured.
When customers are satisfied with the design his staff then creates the piece using gemstones and precious metals.
He adds:
Nearly 4,000 kilometres away in Sydney, jewellery designer, and gemmologist Maria Kostina applies her craft at the business she founded in 2021 – Maria K Jewellery.
She agrees that the ability to work closely with customers during the design process is the most vital benefit of CAD/CAM manufacturing.
With more than 40 years of experience, Romeo has witnessed tremendous shifts in the trade as technology has slowly but surely taken over many responsibilities once managed by hand.
In Victoria, it’s a matter of the same principles with slightly different messaging at another technology-driven jewellery store.
Maria Kostina, Maria K Jewellery
